I’ve been publishing a lot more Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix pieces lately because something shifted here recently and I’ve been having loads more ideas for pithy tweet-sized observations, and if I don’t publish them regularly they’ll be hour-long reads. But don’t worry if you’re more of a fan of the normal essays, I’ll still be putting those out as per usual too.
– CJ

~

Want a healthy world? End secrecy for the powerful, break up all media and fully democratize it, and decriminalize psychedelics. Stop interfering in people’s ability to clearly see what’s going on in their world, in their nation and in themselves, and a healthy system will naturally arise.

~

The amount of power you have over other people should have an exactly inverse relationship to your right to privacy. The more power you have, the less secrecy you should be entitled to. Once your power reaches governmental level or its corporate/financial/political/media equivalent, that secrecy should be zero.

How crazy is it that we’ve allowed people to have power over us and also keep secrets from us? That by itself is bat shit insane. And then to let them shame us and punish us when we try to work out what they’re up to behind that wall of opacity? Utter madness.

Nobody running any government should be allowed to have secrets. Yes, this will mean fewer people are interested in getting into government. That’s as it should be. It shouldn’t be enticing. It’s meant to be a vocation, dedicated to public service. Public servants, private citizens. If you want privacy, then power should be made unappealing to you.

~

Government says it needs secrecy to make war on its enemies effectively, and, curiously, the more secrecy we allow it the more wars and enemies it seems to have.

~

Step 1: Legalize government secrecy so you can do evil things in secret.

Step 2: Use government secrecy to do many many evil things.

Step 3: Call anyone who says you do evil things in secret a crazy conspiracy theorist.

~

Government: We need to keep secrets from you.

Public: Why?

Government: We can’t fight the wars against our enemies without secrecy.

Public: But we’re not in any wars and we have no enemies.

Government: Yeah well it’s hard to make them when you don’t let us keep secrets from you.

~

Humanity is trying its best to collectively fix its problems, but trying to do so in a world whose power dynamics are aggressively obscured by propaganda and government secrecy is like trying to hit a bullseye in a dark room. Gotta find a way to turn those lights on so we can hit the target.

~

Rather than pretending to know exactly what type of revolutionary society would best lead to human thriving, you do have the option of just supporting the freeing up of all information and the end of all perception management and letting people figure it out for themselves.

End all government secrecy, end all political secrecy, end all corporate secrecy, end all Wall Street and financial secrecy, end all propaganda, give everyone equal media control, and just let people see clearly what the hell is actually truly going on in their world, and they’ll naturally start using the power of their numbers to push for healthy changes in their own way. Let people see the actual truth of what’s actually happening and stop using mass media to manipulate their understanding of the raw data and they can make informed decisions about what to do.

It’s the authoritarian mind that thinks it knows exactly what’s best for everyone. A respect for people’s self-sovereignty really means you just want powerful manipulators to stop dicking around with everyone’s understanding of the world so they can figure stuff out on their own.

Anyone with any interest in or access to power should be forbidden to keep secrets from the public. Like how crazy is it that DNC officials were allowed to conspire with each other in secret about how they were going to rule America in the first place? No, you don’t get to do that. If you’re part of a power structure, you have to show your work. Period.

If everyone could see what’s really going on they’d create a world that is night-and-day different from the one we have now, and infinitely healthier. Which is why existing power structures pour so much effort into keeping people from seeing what’s really going on.

I personally think that if people had all the information and weren’t being manipulated by powerful interests they’d create a society that takes care of everyone and isn’t driven by the pursuit of profit, but what the hell do I know? Give them clear vision and let them decide.

In any case, nobody’s getting any revolutionary society of any kind as long as the powerful can control what information people have access to and manipulate the way they think and vote. There will be no revolution as long as people are manipulated into supporting the status quo.

~

The first and foremost job of any US president is to serve as a decoy to draw the fire of all public scrutiny toward real power structures.

~

Propaganda is the root of all our problems; people consent to inequality and injustice because they’re manipulated into doing so. And propaganda is only effective because we’ve got an idiotic societal taboo against acknowledging that we can be fooled. That our minds are hackable.

Manipulation only works when you don’t know it’s happening. Those who think they’re too clever to be manipulated (which would be the majority of people) are the most vulnerable to manipulation. If we just made manipulation more shameful than being manipulated, this could change.

You cannot form an accurate worldview without accounting for the fact that powerful people have invested a great deal in manipulating that worldview, and that to some extent they have probably succeeded. Because being manipulated is considered shameful, most don’t look at this.

I have been manipulated and fooled. So have you. It happens to all of us. There’s no shame in it. The shame belongs solely to those doing the manipulating and deceiving. Fraud is a crime for a reason, and the one they charge for that crime is not the victim, it’s the perpetrator.

_____________________

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80 responses to “Cancel Government Secrecy: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”

  1. Before quora.com kicked me out after my having 970,000 views out for calmly mentioning Bibi Netanyahu’s clean break program, I met a US corporate executive who used to defend China( PRC). He asserted that for anyone to raise in government beyond the lowest level its not that THEY have to be clean, none of their family can even wear an expensive watch.

  2. I’m in agreement with most of this article. Unfortunately, “It’s the authoritarian mind that thinks it knows exactly what’s best for everyone” is one that’s misstated. It should have been worded to say, ‘It’s the authoritarian mind that thinks it knows exactly what’s best for itself – and the hell with everyone else.’
    Also, there’s this, “There will be no revolution as long as people are manipulated into supporting the status quo.” I have stated, many times that, I expect a revolution (at least in the U.s.) when people no longer even have the one last thing they are holding onto. The one thing that manipulation cannot accomplish is to make people think that they have something when everything has been taken away and they are walking the streets.

  3. “Want a healthy world? End secrecy for the powerful…”
    — Caitlin Johnstone
    .
    “Do we want to live in a society where we live totally naked in front of government, and they are totally opaque to us? . . . Privacy is for the powerless. Transparency is for the powerful.”
    — Edward Snowden
    .
    “There should be transparency of governments and there should be privacy for individuals.”
    — Julian Assange
    .
    “We open governments.”
    — WikiLeaks
    .
    “If corruption is a disease, transparency is essential part of its treatment.”
    — United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan
    .
    “The point is the burden of proof is on the government. They have to show that there’s a reason to keep something secret. Other than that it should be open. I’ve spent a lot of time working on declassified documents — and they do get declassified after decades — you look at the record of declassified documents, and they are mostly concerned with keeping what the government does secret from its own population. It’s mostly defense of the power system from its own population. Very little is authentic security.”
    — Noam Chomsky
    .
    “The very word ‘secrecy’ is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it.”
    — President John F. Kennedy
    .
    “We the People…”
    — Constitution of the United States of America
    .
    “Well, democracy is there. The power does not belong to the government, it belongs to the people. But the people has to claim it. And you see power without transparency disempowers the people. The people cannot oversee and control the government if there is secrecy.”
    — Nils Melzer, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture
    .

    1. Damn good quotes and short (bitter)sweet video. Thank you, JMG.

  4. Here in New York the crime and corruption is so blatant that it is waved right in front of your face. This political thug got 78 months instead of 78 years behind bars. You can read this article here:
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/508161-ex-new-york-assembly-speaker-sentenced-to-78-months-in-prison

  5. Bruce Blackwell Avatar
    Bruce Blackwell

    A favorite vignette on secret power came from one of the innumerable business books I’ve read (no memory of which. Probably Michael Lewis). The power person has pitched a scheme to the money person and the money person avers, “It’s an intriguing idea and I’ll probably make some significant money but I know for a fact that in the end I’ll still be getting f***ed by you. I’ll make the deal if you tell me how you are going to f**k me!” So, the f**ker tells the f**kee about the nature of the scam and business is completed profitably for both. Win/Win! Try that with an elected official (I’ve tried and failed every time). People who I consider friends mange to get elected, then egregiously f**k their constituents and refuse to admit (even after many sociable cocktails) to having had fucked their constituents (to their own benefit). Their sins wouldn’t send them to jail, they are “Good Christians” yet they refuse to confess. Then, of course, I’m the a**hole for suggesting such things. My Dad would laugh about such behavior. “How To Win Friends and Influence People” he called it. Grandma would suggest (regarding the Chicago Gangsters in the 20’s & 30’s) that “If you don’t bother them then they won’t bother you!”. I’m guess that she was a little naive. Or not.

    1. Nice comment. I get your grandma’s suggestion but suspect that “they” are about to be bothered in ways neither they nor us ever dreamed of. Caitlin also senses this, and there’s really no way to explain it beyond what she’s doing, talking about this or that aspect of the vibe she’s picked up on. You either see or feel a looming sea change, an abrupt evolutionary leap unlike anything before in human history, or you don’t.

      1. Amen to that. I feel it too and it is really bothering me because I know that deep serious chaos is coming that is going to change everything and everybody.

  6. great comment …exposure of the Chosen Ones…who insist their heaven is on Earth…while our massive thuggery would say we’ll get raptured when they go to war…or something like that. we all might google “the eight families”…of course naming names is easy when someone did it for you: rockyfellahs, lehman, rothschilds {not their real name–red shield} is that from splattered blood? morgan, dupont, gates, harriman, Trump even said he IS the chosen one, goldman sachs (going back to doing god’s werk) always wins…
    dylan called them “masters of war,” leonard cohen said “the dice are loaded.” Basel is one long jog from both France and Germany, not exactly in da Alps…it did not feel one bullet or lose one man in TWO WORLD WARS…why? it wudda seemed a perfect freeway around either army. why?
    Switz is the largest drug money laundrymat in da world. why? when Bolsanaro (a name that looks a lot like “bag man” in Spanish) got erroneously elected, he flew straight to “switzerland” to “SEE A DENTIST!” why? it ain’t because of Marx, is it?

  7. Roundball Shaman Avatar
    Roundball Shaman

    “How crazy is it that we’ve allowed people to have power over us and also keep secrets from us? That by itself is bat shit insane. And then to let them shame us and punish us when we try to work out what they’re up to behind that wall of opacity?”
    .
    When one has learned to embrace being abused, it’s a hard habit to break. You don’t know any other way to live after a while, and you have accepted a perverted diminished view of your worth and value. You begin to see and identify with being a member of The Abused. Which suits the numerous Abusers Of The World just fine.
    .
    “… It’s meant to be a vocation, dedicated to public service. Public servants, private citizens.”
    .
    The words Public Servants should be stricken from the language and never used in civil conversation. Those words are a mockery. Those words should be treated as if they were as offensive as The N-Word. What those people are? SELF-Servants to an obscene degree. Don’t insult us into hoping we’ll accept such language abominations.
    .
    “Step 1: Legalize government secrecy so you can do evil things in secret.
    Step 2: Use government secrecy to do many many evil things.
    Step 3: Call anyone who says you do evil things in secret a crazy conspiracy theorist.”
    .
    Step 4: Give up the pretense and just start doing evil things openly. Saves everyone time.
    .
    “I personally think that if people had all the information and weren’t being manipulated by powerful interests they’d create a society that takes care of everyone…”
    .
    This would be a far better world if it were being run by cats. One you feed the cat, it will leave you alone. Not so with current governments.

    1. Good comment. Voters are crazy or stupid to accept their slavery. But the psychopaths who oppress us would never go along with anything which undermines their power over their crazy stupid voters.

      1. I don’t blame voters for being crazy or stupid. I blame the psychopaths who made them crazy stupid.

  8. “Propaganda is the root of all our problems”. So propaganda must be stopped. This is as easy as making deceit illegal, because what distinguishes propaganda from information is the intent to manipulate by deceiving.
    Many people object to the idea of the death penalty for lying, because lying to each other has become a social currency. Without flattery and secrets, individuals cannot get something for nothing, which simplifies disrupting entrenched injustices.
    It’s much easier to prove a lie than to prove a swindle.

  9. A creative article. Utopian yes, but why not?

    Your article stops critically short of suggesting how far up this “deception exposure” movement should go. We’re talking bottles of red pills here. Let’s say it goes all the way to the very top. (And who knows who, what, and where that is!) Society’s upheaval would be unimaginable…. not that this would be a bad thing.

    I myself don’t see this happening. At least not without some monumental shift in consciousness.

  10. Yes, legalize psychedelics. They are good at removing the key logs that cause log jams in thinking. If you aren’t familiar with this metaphor, read the Wikipedia article on “log driving”.

    – Once, a long time ago, I went to an all weekend Grateful Dead concert, consumed a lot of wine and marijuana, and 1 mushroom. This experience vaporized 8 years of programing that had me thinking that being a “lean, mean, green, fighting machine” was a good idea. I turned down a lucrative reenlistment contract and got out. That was the only mushroom I ever ate. Its very curious that the mushroom came along just in time to help save my soul.

    * * * *
    The only way many actions make sense is if the mind is compartmentalized, and keeps ideals separated from facts about effects and consequences. Psychedelics soften the walls of those mental compartments and allow a freer flow of info between different parts of your mind.

    – Keep in mind there can be too much of a good thing. You don’t want your mind to melt and dribble out your ears. You need just enough to break up the mental log jams, but leave the thinking processes intact. You do want to have a broader perspective on the programming that has been stuffed into your head, without you noticing it.

    – Studies have shown that microdoses have potential for helping to heal mental health issues. So it doesn’t take much for a psychedelic drug to have a positive effect on your mind. On the other hand, stoner cultures are full of stories of what happens to people who take way too much, way too often.

    – I think psychedelics are a learning tool, and once you learn the new mental pathways, and practice them a bit, then you can do it without the psychedelics.

    – Its no surprise to me that the government secretly encourages the black market in stupefying drugs, and really harshly suppresses the psychedelics. The stupefying drugs help sustain the status quo, and psychedelics help undermine it.

    * * * *
    Reading the “Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix” pieces have a mild effect on me that is similar to psychedelics. They seem to help loosen up the coagulated thinking and ideas in my head.

    – And the best bit is reading these pieces isn’t illegal.

    – People clinging to the rigidity of essays probably need to loosen up their thinking and probably need the assistance of a psychedelic to do this.

    – There are some really interesting observations in this article:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybe_cyanescens
    Its another interesting coincidence that the range of this mushroom is rapidly expanding, just when propaganda is badly twisting the public’s perception of reality.

    * * * *
    The euroamerican culture is addicted to linear left-brain thinking, which was just a tool the right brain used to accomplish tasks.

    – The holistic right brain is what sorts thru many pieces and assembles a whole picture, and then in this whole picture context, makes policy decisions.

    – Maybe part of what psychedelics do is shift the center of thinking from the left brain back to the right brain.

    – I’m certain the oligarchs know that its easier to manipulate people who are stuck in their left brain.

  11. Hear what you are saying which works great in principle but not so well in practice. Everyone has secrets, individuals, businesses and especially governments.

  12. The problem with pithy , tweet sized observations is that they are just what our rulers who own and manipulate Twitter desire , and such missives are almost always based in bull shit . As Mr Trump has gleefully discovered and governs by ! Sending E-mail aka tweets or yammering on Facebook etc. are not action just more talk , which actually buttresses the status quo in its ineffectiveness. At this point in time so called “peaceful protests” should be added to this exercise in futility . Conversely the current under reported riots in Portland and Seattle may be a sign that things are changing ?

  13. Yes what is bat shit crazy is Julian Assange’s incarceration for exposing the criminality of government /military actions in Iraq . He did the right thing because there is no need to keep the truth from us ,the people of the world .We need to see the dirt , all of it , so that people are disgusted enough to do something about it. Otherwise the existing situation only festers and gets worse .
    Very good point Caitlin .Keep hitting the nail on it’s proverbial head.

    1. Timing is telling. Julian Assange was targeted not for publishing horrific proof of the atrocities of war. Those are to be expected. His real crime was threatening the international private banking cartel. The war tapes from Manning were published from May-July 2010. In Aug executives of Kaupthieg Bank in Iceland were sentenced for crimes exposed by documents leaked to and published by WikiLeaks.
      The war logs illicited much noise and threats but no action to speak of. In a Forbes interview published on Nov 29, 2010 Assange stated that WikiLeaks had business documents revealing crimes. Included was the hard drive of a CEO of a major bank, according to Time, BofA. He stated that those documents would lead to the failure of one or two major banks and would be published in early 2011.. On Dec. 1 Amazon kicked WikiLeaks off its hosting services. Amazon makes most of its profits hosting government sites including the CIA. Why wait til after the Forbes article and not after the War Logs if Bezos was so concerned about government secrets? On Dec 2 PayPal discontinued WikiLeaks donation transfers. On Dec 3 Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Western Union etc. discontinued service basically starving WikiLeaks. Iceland and Sweden provided hosting services.
      While in Sweden securing a protected hosting service, the alleged crimes occurred. While on bail in UK in June or July 2011, he was guest at a public discussion. During a question and answer segment he was asked why those business documents had not been published. His reply was that he was not at liberty to answer but that one could imagine the reason.
      I imagine that he and his family were threatened. His response would be if he or his family were harmed even accidentally the documents would be published. Standoff.
      Because of all the propaganda aimed at Assange there was the distinct possibility some deranged patriot would target him. To solve that problem asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy was arranged. During his stay there his every move and visitor was monitored. He was absolutely safe for the banksters. He was expelled from the embassy at the precise time that the statute of limitations on financial crimes that would have been reported had expired. The hour that he was expelled the IMF released a $4.5 billion loan to Ecuador. Among the requirement were of course austerity measures including reducing expenditures on health care by 2/3. One of the reasons the pandemic produced such horrific results in Guayaquil.
      To this day the only banksters tried for their crimes and held to the rule of law were Icelanders. Brave little Iceland. Now that banking is back in democratic hands in Iceland the economy has recovered better than any other in the Western world.

      1. Good post thanks for it . It was deeply impressed by how quickly the “Panama Papers ” another tax evading scandal, which brought down the Cameron regime in England were tied off .

  14. And there lies the rub. What entity has the power to force a government to do anything, since government is the pinnacle of force? The application of the threat of violence. Which it claims a monopoly on. The more it is resisted, the more violent it becomes, and the less interested in your complaint. I have no illusion that a true libertarian non-aggression social system will ever occur. But please be aware of the monster whose tail you hold, and how truly monstrous it can be.

    1. You can impact of local governments by leaving such as detroit. No money no government. But the federal government is something else. Order must breakdown until state and local politicians ignore the federal. As we are beginning to see with Covid responses.

      1. Indeed, I have long argued for the balkanization of the US. No tolerable government can work in a political unit this size. There is far TO MUCH diversity for such to work. What common culture does NYC have with rural Arkansas? Or urban Arkansas for that matter?

  15. At least we have equality in one thing.
    We all, without exception, die.

  16. There’s been another uptick in bullshit comments about how Jews rule the world. I’m permanently and unapologetically IP banning anyone who does this. I refuse to let my site become that kind of forum. If you have a problem with that you can kiss my ass.

    1. Why you would choose that particular set of ancient lies to to become outraged over is interesting in itself with so many other more harmful ones being promulgated these days? Currently the covid panic being the worst, as far as what its effect on humanity is about to become ? Or publishing silly articles claiming global overpopulation and the problems it has caused are now under the control of some secret cabal ? When in fact global population is still increasing by 80 million plus , the equivalent of population of Germany each year , despite all the women and children being killed in their millions by the increasing conflicts around the planet. .

      1. Based on the comments I’ve read, there’s a wide ranging audience here. I doubt you’ll influence Caitlin to pick the topics matching up to your specific set of priorities and concerns.

        I see for many people the cabal is continuing to do a good job maintaining its secrecy. Too many people hanging out at the MSM feeding trough.

        1. With you as a self appointed gatekeeper I’m sure MS Johnstone feels protected?

        2. I’ve often commented in disagreement with points made in MS Johnstone’s articles. I’m not here to “defend” her or anyone else.

          I see plenty of illogical comments in her articles. Generally they’re built around false premises. Most I ignore. Yours stuck out as particularly irrelevant, but then logic is in the mind of the thinker.

    2. Caitlin, if you start banning people who say things you don’t like, you would be opposing free speech. It’s no crime for someone to say things which are false, speculative, unfounded, or which might expose people who work behind closed doors. I am not advocating slander nor nonconstructive hate speech; but let us hear what people have to say without prejudice.

      1. I don’t give a fuck. My site, my rules. Deal with it.

        1. Then you do censoring. We criticize other journalists for doing that.

          1. I don’t give a fuck how you want to spin it. My site which I pay for will not be a forum for people to babble about Jews being the source of the world’s problems. If you have a problem with that, you can kiss my ass.

            1. For what’s it worth, I have done several styles of combatives, but settled into baguazhang. One of the lessons is how to draw an adversary into emptiness, unbalance said opponent and steal that person’t root [upend the person]. It’s also one of the lessons about being a provocateur. You’re too smart to fall for that trap.

      2. There needs to be a reasonable balance between ideology and pragmatism. I don’t want to waste my time on a website overrun with trolls.

        Every large demographic has its share of sociopath billionaires. Some people obsess on a specific group, and this doesn’t contribute to any solutions. Somebody must make the judgment call on what is and isn’t troll behavior.

        We need to focus on mobilizing enough people to successfully deal with all of the oligarchs, from all of the ethnic groups.

        1. obsessing on nazis might maybe get rid of nazis….
          not doing nuttin honey will do nuttin… huh.

      3. Would we be having this conversation if comments about Freemasons were blocked? How about royal families? What if mentions of Bilderbergers were all deleted? Illuminati references? Wealthy bloodline families? (For theories on how these groups are organized, search Google Images on the terms power + structure + pyramid)

        Even if you believe your pet-blame-group is at the very top of the power pyramid, people fail to understand that these pyramids of known entities are the bottom of a much taller pyramid. The many upper layers obscured from our awareness are far more relevant to what comprise the Powers That Be. The known entities are not the controllers, no matter how high up they appear to be. Blaming any of them is like blaming the prison staff.

        So focusing on any particular group in our perceived power structure pyramid is going to deflect the conversations here from their intended material. There are plenty of online discussion groups discussing each of these groups. Go there if inspired.

        1. everyone read “the Eight families” and branch out from there.
          if yo like jews in AMerica like i do: mel brooks, einstein what i can understand, Marx, sarah silverman. woody allen. yep. seinfeld. carol king, L. Cohen. dylan, Mother Theresa, i dunno.
          but i hate bankers. esp. Wall St. Mnunchin evicted 100,000 people of course al by accident . he did not hear about it until too late. he was sick with flu. and Kissinger teaches presidents how to murder. Netanyahu said he has more power than the US president, because he tells them all what to do.
          jews are killing arabs and stealing their land. call them Masters of War. What woudl jesus do? Or Dylan say?
          still lotsa Jew boyz call lantzmen i think, are messing up our economy very badly.
          that part is sick for sure. hedge funds are going to be the final nailin our collective coffin. i read a lot of that stuff…your turn.

          1. also include a man named Fink. his firm owns 45,000 homes in CA during a housing crisis.
            add Madoff. who was chump compared.
            Blankfein who heqaaded Goldman-sachs….they measure it by sacks…saying going back to doing god’s werk.
            Israelites have become nazis running world’s all time largest concentration camp.
            of course they learned how the hard way.
            they might have learned compassion for those whose land you are stealing.
            oh nevermind.

          2. Hopefully you realize your assorted minutiae misses my point entirely.

            1. yeah i suppose so>>make it more clearly….
              45,000 empty homes is not minutia. nor is sniping at children from a wall.
              not to mention mossad elements dancing onthe NJ Freeway as the WTC tumbled down.
              how did they know that was gonna happen? do pepele usually set up telescops on tripods alng side freeways? funny lived in NyC and never ever saw a telescope there. the sky was light sort of brown.
              yer a troll.

        2. Thank you Lynn, for restoring my faith that not all humans are mentally crippled by Belief. Your observation that the pyramids of hierarchy which have hijacked every aspect of human behaviour are all consistent with a much larger agenda . . . is something almostNobody is willing to think about from the outside.
          All the pyramids have the same pattern of minimising meaning with tunnelThinking, and punishing individuality and innovation with alienation and scorn.
          Some of the worst deniers of reality are the Materialists, with their dishonest pretense that negative proofs are bulletproof. They call themselves other respectable-seeming things, like atheists and skeptics, but their devout beliefs are idiotically inadequate and strangely identical.
          We are engaged with a cunning and remorseless enemy who profits by human stupidity, and so cultivates careless reasoning to increase their secretive extortion. You recognise their footprint without naming these thieves of self-respect and discernment.
          David Icke has mistakenly trusted informants who are no friend to mankind, most apparent in his newAge cargoCult realityMap of external assistance, so Icke can be misleading in some of what he proposes. Icke attributes his portrayal of disguised bloody tyranny . . . to possession by reptilian ghosts, whereas the PopeLike materialist pronounces nonExistence, while jesusBeggars delude themselves that they are on a promise of protection from “benevolent” nonHuman farmers of mankind, protection promised against evil spirits whom believers invariably nihilise with ignorance and cowardly aversion.
          This pejorative influence on the minds of mankind is best described by the scientists of preColumbian mesoAmerica, who termed these inorganic beings Mud Shadows . . . for their weighty drooping feel and their attention-eluding vantablack appearance.
          Castaneda’s description from nagual Juan is corroborated by field anthropologist Florinda Donner, who vividly describes a direct confrontation with a mudShadow in the early chapters of Being in Dreaming, while in a hotel in Northern Mexico. Her emotional reaction to the assault is no exaggeration.
          The modus operandi described in The Active Side of Infinity is verifiable by pattern matching with the cruelty of current affairs and inescapable encounters with humans projecting insulting expectations of stupidity and amoral selfishness.

          1. Peter Mann: Ultimately my problem is the same as most. Too much accumulated information to ever become clear on the true nature of reality without fooling myself.

            1. Ouch, Lynn. I know exactly what you mean. My life has been as you describe since kindergarten. Tough subject to write about, but i’ll attempt to convey the progress i’ve made.

              Being an optimist is necessary ; without the protective shield of a grand vision, we would be bewildered by deceitful contradictions, and have no purpose for assembling sanity in a world of self-obsessed liars.
              For me, looking for the best way of understanding wtf is really going on is a controlledFolly, which has the effect of maintaining self-respect and sober discipline of our self-importance.

              I see this controlledFolly as crucially different from my fellow humans’ approach to understanding of reality, because they typically prioritise ideas which exaggerate their own importance.

              The technology of controlledFolly originated in mesoAmerica, and evolved through generations until 200 years before Columbus brought plagues to the Americas {not least of which was the book and heretic-burning holy inquisition.} When Cortez arrived, the war-obsessed Mexica tribe was dominant and widely disliked, so the Spanish confusingly called them Aztecs and the country Mexico.

              Being systematically deceived by unconscionable factions who extort belief is getting attention from individuals like Cait and myself. Ideas like this take years to digest into understanding because there is obfuscation with artificial complexities to be cleaned out.

              What makes me relatively immune to the subverting of human intelligence is my cultural background, founded in truthfulness and figuring out how things work. By comparison, the empire of the United States of Prohibition&Punishment is founded on competitive LookAfterMyself and fakeForgiveness, resulting in competing hierachies of conformity & alienation-to-everybody (as dramatised by Pink Floyd in the Wall).

              Like everyone else, Caitlin immediately disregarded my explanation of political cruelty & corruption, despite us working against the same enemy. She believes in what she can see, and she sees evil as originating in humans, like the Bible deceitfully tells us.

              I study the phenomenon by focussing on the energy dynamics, and from the certain knowledge that our predecessors took care to protect themselves from evil spirits (which Saul undermined by preaching Jesus would protect us from them, but only if we give our belief and faith to his Trumplike “father”.

              The endless supply of nonsense philosophies and bogus explanations is no accident, but camouflage to obscure the hidden realities of mankind’s pernicious symbiont. As an egalitarian who likes self-explanatory terminology, i prefer the term mindParasite, while the scientists which engineered social countermeasures termed these inorganic beings (ie comprised of dark/aetheric matter) the Mud Shadows, to denote their weighty texture and their inconspicuous appearance.

              These were first described to a Western field anthropologist, who published his reportage of the event in 1998 in the interesting The Active Side of Infinity. A world dominated by mudShadows would have to be the greatest possible challenge to faith and sanity.

              You would not happen to be Lynn Chalmers ? I’m impressed by your writing, and confident you are faring well in our shared bizarre adversity. If you would like me to expand on any of the above, please ask. Best Regards from Speedy Pete.

              1. Nope. Not Lynn Chalmers. I’m not aware of that name. For me it all essentially boils down to acceptance and maintaining an objective perspective. We allow too much clutter to enter our lives.

                1. I find having a purpose bigger than myself adds meaning, stability and motivation, while helping protect me from the caprice of self-importance. I interpret “maintaining an objective perspective” as an intent towards sobriety, the essence of which is a determination to understand how everything works, which incidently is the best definition of love i have encountered.
                  As for acceptance, i don’t want to be a passive witness. There are changes that need to be implemented before mankind can reclaim our heritage as offspring of theCreator. Making those changes happen is what engages me in public discussion, which i monitor for dynamics like unnecessaryCruelty and wilfulStupidity, while trying to inject a fresh and liberated perspective.
                  Which reminds me of the Greek myth about punishing somebody by having to push a rock uphill all day, only to find it at the bottom again each morning, for all the observable effect my endeavours generate. Maybe the greeks knew about controlled folly in their own way, which is engineering what we become.
                  My favourite greek is Eratostanes, who accurately calculated the circumference of Earth centuries before the Christians burned all the libraries and declared the world flat.

          2. whooosh…anyone feel a wind?

  17. Jewish. Rockefeller band Carnegie are not Jewish genius.

    Actually less than 30% of the original meeting on Jekylls Island were Jewish.

    It’s bigots like you that feed the fires of inequity.

    The Kabal had been attacking and destroying for a century before the Russians told them it must stop. They said mark yourself with some religion so we have someone to blame.

    Pick one. Christian, Jew or Moslem.

    They selected Jew and gear we are today. Now it’s the Jews at fault.

    Israel is a country with a corrupt government, very similar to the US. Is every American guilty for the crimes of the CIA?

    If yes they are then every Israeli is guilty for everything Israel does.

    How does that paint a religion in any light as you state.

    Look inward. When you have done that and see everything is beautiful and pristine then start talking about others.

    Until then shut the fuck up. So easy to hide behind you digital ID. Imagine when you learn how easy it is to track you down and after you type some of your hate the bell rings and you are dragged out to pay for your words.

    That is the world we are in. So think before you attack others. Look inward. If there are truly perfect go right ahead and explain how everything else works.

    NAZI

  18. Anarchists or Voluntarists are both peace loving ways to live.

    Find your Phyle and live in community with them. Each community grow crops. Start becoming human again.

    Everything need not be prepared and handed to you on a silver platter.

    That said if you truly want to live in a square box onto of other square boxes in giant buildings going higher and higher into the sky I guess it should be an option. That method of living requires Government.

    Become more human does not require Government but the setup will be a long time and quite painful

    The biggest issue of the day vis health care. People have been trained to think it’s a requirement. Well feed people in poison and cures are needed. Stop eating poison is always the crazy idea.

    Experience breeds brains. Lack of experience breeds belief of knowing something because social media likes you.

    Accept reality.

  19. Secrecy and impunity. Licenses to kill. You mean that sort of thing. You mean 60 year old men and women with the brain of 12 year olds. No wonder these dirt bags are so desperate.

  20. Ah, Ms Johnstone, the owners and the masters will never consent to ” the public being really made aware of anything “. The ” public dumbshits ” must be kept as dumb as possible at all times and given new carrots out in front of them, every day, for them to see and chase after. Knowledge is power, money is power, media is power, therefor they are forbidden to the public dumbshits. No Ms Johnstone this will never be allowed anywhere!

  21. Love this one! Thank you thank you thank you ❤️

  22. Great points as always, and I think the Z-kids are way ahead of all of us in this regard. I call it “space” as in distance from the experience. Perspective is the same idea and objectivity is the result.

    It’s part of the human experience to judge reality by one’s surroundings-it’s probably an evolved survival instinct. The issue then becomes that with which we surround ourselves. In the age of information that’s evolved into one of activism (and probably revolution), there’s little objectivity from anyone. The writers of our reality present events in the usual way, one that is divisive, alienating and ultimately isolationist, which encourages most people to engage in questionable ways.

    The solution is being closed. I noticed that some of the Gannett newspapers no longer allow Fakebook comments on the site itself, which would encourage greater communication among like-minded, but geographically separated as well as the usual separations of economic utility, political ideology, gender, race, et cetera. It’s reinforcing the echo chamber and putting many people back in their hole, which is exactly where we were before the democratizing power of the internet was realized.

    Obama said the web is the wild west when it comes to information, and he was right as far as most people understand the wild west to have been. Depending on who a person reads, the wild west was closer to anarcho-capitalism, with some places incredibly safe for different reasons [more guns, private services like police or refuse collection]. Perhaps what emerged from the late 1800s is what we should be looking to achieve.

    I have not found a source on this-not that I would since most studies of the public aren’t known until after the results can be prepped, understood or implemented-but with the surveillance state being what it is, there is a definite advantage (to those entities) in encouraging people to socially distance themselves. And depending on how far along that surveillance state has progressed, there could be value to encourage mask-wearing, ie hide the face so that the eyes are the focus point-a dry run of tech most of us don’t want.

    Matt Taibbi stated in a piece a few weeks ago, the responsibility of the press was never ‘five paragraphs for the Rs & five for the Ds’. Instead, he claims the role of the press was to share everything that could be seen in an informative summary of an issue-especially an issue that affected large swaths of people independent of the now exploited collectivist identity.

    Tribalism is the result of those constructs, but forcing someone to call foul on their own institutions is rare. Having recently read Yuval Levin’s book “A Time to Build” where he outlined some of the issues with institutions in modern life, I believe there are few within those institutions-be it press, college/university, government, medicine & science, the church, really any established collective-that would go rogue. That unwillingness has been undermining the value of those institutions for some time and it’s unlikely anyone will be promoted publicly when highlighting those problems.

    That said, I am optimistic that institutions will realize where they stand with the public. BLM is an overdue perception but a deeply flawed national organization, but there are some police reforms underway. When the dust settles on TheCovid19ExistentialCrisis, I suspect medicine and science as institutions will realize what has to be done [self-correction or public distrust], but at the moment there’s little if any incentive to criticize any study-there’s no research dollars in it-so “peer-review” is non-existent.

    There is a way forward, but it’s going to get darker and more divisive before real leadership emerges and moves public expectations into a less segmented reality. And I’m almost certain the powers that be have more options available, the least of which is another war. The good news is that there are an increasing number of people calling bullshit, pulling out and taking a stand, so damn near every action our masters undertake wakes people up.

    1. Love your last paragraph.

    2. The government will be more than happy to accomodate us all with a little 8×8 space shared with 2 to 4 others if we step out of line.

  23. Most people have no interest in finding out what goes on behind the window-dressing and fabrications which politicians create to hide their horrible secrets. Trusting the government propaganda is much easier than facing reality and many slaves prefer being controlled by others rather than having to think for themselves and take personal responsibility.

    1. I agree. It is obvious from the continuing appeal of and recent elections of authoritarian leaders in multiple countries (and associated assumption there is some similar nefarious leader pulling the strings of any resistance) as well as the continued existence of formal religions, that many people prefer having someone else do the heavy lifting. And in this recent pandemic where even the experts cannot predict how things will go, those same people are completely unsettled and unable to trust any information they have access to, which makes an authoritarian leader even more attractive to them. Of course the big secret an authoritarian has to protect is that they don’t know much more than the average person.

  24. Anyone who seeks to have power over others should be summarily shot.

    None of Caitlin’s wonderful ideas can come to fruition unless those who currently control mainstream mass media are exterminated for the vermin they are, and all mass media are required under pain of death to tell the whole truth from ever angle, no secrets, no lies, no propaganda – facts unadorned.

    1. I, too, have my fantasies, but how are we to summarily shoot people, exterminate them as vermin, without assuming power over them–indeed, the ultimate power? And if we did this, wouldn’t we then be obliged to shoot ourselves? I must have missed the tone of your comment.

  25. Sure propaganda is sinister and powerful but not the root of all our problems. For more than 70 years, scientists have known that the root cause of society’s problems is undesirable genes which produce psychopaths and parasites. The dominant Humanist philosophy teaches that all humans are born innately good, but as they grow up, some get corrupted by their social, cultural, political environment and upbringing. But that is an illogical fallacy: Greed, lying, cheating, corruption, murder, addiction, laziness, etc. cannot appear from nowhere if all humans are born innately good in the first place. It does not explain the origins of evil.

    1. But over 20 years ago, an evolutionary psych course taught me that evolution doesn’t make long-lasting mistakes like that. We *need* our 5% of empathy-free psychopaths in our society so that our social structures and practices that evolved to protect us from them remain in constant use and good form.

      Any society that cured or ousted those nasty folks would soon also forget about its cautionary practices that limit the harm such selfish folk do. Their entire society would then be easy prey for the first outsider group’s psychos that came along, and that evolutionary error would come to an unpleasant end.

      Our problem now is that we seem to be a society that *has* forgotten to keep its protective mechanisms in order, so . . . .

      1. Hmmm

        Point well taken.

        The United States had all manner of well-intentioned and effective protective mechanisms in place. The problem is that the group currently in power has simply removed many of them and selectively applied/enforced many others. Perhaps the worst example in terms of overall damage to the country over the last 30 years was their getting rid of Glass-Steagall.

        1. The United States government has effectively de-criminalized corruption so that there is now no such thing as ” dirty money “. Wall Street and K Street are raking in the profits; ethics and morality are no where to be found. Criminal activity always generates money and money is the key to the god we now worship.

          1. Most laws are designed, promoted and enforced by people above the law, to keep those under the law from usurping their authority or ending their tyranny.

    2. “For more than 70 years, scientists have known that the root cause of society’s problems is undesirable genes which produce psychopaths and parasites.”
      “Greed, lying, cheating, corruption, murder, addiction, laziness, etc. cannot appear from nowhere if all humans are born innately good in the first place.”
      Are those statements correct?

      1. OK, the Bible suggests that angels can mutate into demons. I would love to hear someone explain how good can mutate to evil all by itself.

        1. Well, Revolutionary should love this then : good mutates into evil when self-importance prevails over wisdom and generosity. Self-importance is an artificial stupidity engendered by fixating the ‘assemblage-point-of-perception’ at the position of self-reflection, which is the end result of believing that the Bible is a realityMap from the Creator of spaceTime . . . instead of the swindling mud shadows.

    3. Dear Revolutionary, none of what you propose explains the origin of evil. The association between genetics and moral illness is desperate speculation from devout Materialists claiming negative proofs.
      The physical basis of evil is in the 95% of spaceTime currently termed ‘dark matter’, which explains why scientists are unable to think about the dynamics of evil ; they lack the cognitive architecture to begin speculation, while lacking instrumentation for empirical experiment.
      Earlier scientists have done this work, but had their books burned to the last page by the Spanish Inquisition. Fortunately an account survived through a surviving lineage in Mexico, providing an accurate and verifiable description of a species of mindParasite which feeds on the anguish now overflowing in the USA.
      The Mud Shadows chapter in the Active Side of Infinity documents the Toltec diclosure of the ‘Secret of Secrets’ in a vivid reportage by propaganda-assassinated field anthropologist Carlos Castaneda PhD.

      1. I don’t know of any reasonable explanation for the origin of evil. But if a global crisis will selectively eliminate undesirable genes, society will be free of evil, probably for 1000 years. “dark matter” and “mindParasite” are immeasurable metaphysical concepts like “the devil” and “the Secret of Secrets” sounds like “the Secrets of God’s Kingdom” mentioned in Matthew 13:11, Mark 4:11 and Luke 8:10.

        1. Revolutionary fails to revolutionise their ideas because incompetent to discern difference between truthful anthropologist and lying self-contradicting Jehovah/Jesus/Allah.

  26. The points you make are good ones; however, like most who criticize the bankrupt America political system, you offer no concrete plan for changing the status quo.

  27. Clear as a bell. Perfect in every way. a huge big time bingo!
    i’m impressed you laid it all out in so few words. past the easy defintions into the substance and with the little satire in the middle…the 1.2.3.
    nice.
    i want to start screaming for Assange. and i want a medal and another round of Cash me or what ever it’s called crowd funding for Private Manning. she is wounded super star also.
    i want her to speak before every high school graduating class AND WestPOINT also until she makes enough money to sit down with Michelle’s ghost writer and tell ALL again and again. same thing for Assange.
    the US of A-holes is now the Republic of Criminal Grifters all seeking baksheesh, grease, la mordida, bribery or membership in Geo W Bush’s vast right wing slip of the tongue: the Ownership Society. he actually said that. over-cocky. we have to make it that way. expose it. my plan for financing the revolution is by an ASSET Tax to replace income tax. Income is irrelevant for these bastards. they know assets are power. police protect property much faster than they do persons, unless those persons are corpo-rats.
    the ones who have gained by America’s largesse can now pay back the rest of us they climbed upon to make it.

  28. How will these good ideas be enforced against those who currently hold the power of life and death over us, know our secrets, and remain hidden from us?
    Just askin’.
    Gonna’ break some eggs to make that souffle’?
    http://www.johndayblog.com/2020/07/walking-path.html
    What road are we really on? We presume to know where we are going, but we had no idea at Christmas that we’d be where we are today. It’s just getting weirder, because that’s all it can do until we (meaning “you”, as it always does) do one thing that makes sense, one at t time, and maybe re-do one thing repeatedly, until it works. Millions of people die going through transitions, a lot of them with the help of our owners and their military.
    Our turn may also be approaching, and maybe some of our owners , too, this time around…

    Jim Kunstler: A Bigger Picture
    ​ ​Right now, start planning where you might go and what you can do. The turmoil will be filled with opportunity to find ways to be useful to other people, to devise work-arounds for ruptured systems and relationships, in getting food to people, making things they need, distributing them, fixing things that are broken where possible, and moving people and stuff from point A to point B. There will be plenty of work for people who are willing to do it. Keep in mind that it’s entirely up to you to make good choices.
    ​ ​Don’t despair, and if you find yourself veering toward it, get over yourself. It’s just part of becoming stronger than you thought you could be, and the times will require it of you anyway. The offices that gave out brownie points for avouched victimhood will also be shutting down. Won’t that be a relief? Welcome to the joyful illumination that life is difficult for everybody. Who is ready for this epic journey?
    https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/a-bigger-picture/

  29. “Propaganda is the root of all our problems; people consent to inequality and injustice because they’re manipulated into doing so.” Yes, absolutely, when it comes to inequality and injustice for ME. Consent to that? Hell no! But when it comes to inequality and injustice for YOU…well, this ain’t a perfect world and things, you know, take time.

  30. Is it logically possible for a country to be a democracy when its officials keep so many important secrets from the voters?

    Or when they even tell lies to cover up their secret-keeping?

    When they viciously prosecute anyone who tries to get the truth to the voters?

    How can voters know what they are voting for? Or against?

    This is democracy?

  31. No more secret evidence- it’s secret because there’s something wrong with it. When politicians use secret evidence, we start voting them out. When socialists occupy 50% of the legislature, I guarantee the rest of them will start getting realistic.

  32. Benjamin Wilson Avatar
    Benjamin Wilson

    “You cannot form an accurate worldview without accounting for the fact that powerful people have invested a great deal in manipulating that worldview, and that to some extent they have probably succeeded. Because being manipulated is considered shameful, most don’t look at this.

    I have been manipulated and fooled. So have you. It happens to all of us. There’s no shame in it. The shame belongs solely to those doing the manipulating and deceiving. Fraud is a crime for a reason, and the one they charge for that crime is not the victim, it’s the perpetrator.”

    Yes, this.

    1. “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice… heh, heh, heh, heh…”

      Gotcha’! you looked. I win again.
      George W. Bush, Carny-for-governor-and-president

  33. Cancelling government secrecy may sound like a good idea, but it is unrealistic. This is what Woodrow Wilson sought to do with his utopian League of Nations, but he only made matters worse.

    https://gregfelton.com/int_politics/2011_04_01.htm

    The key to a rational world lies in not denying human nature but attenuating its less savoury elements.

    Love your essays.

  34. >>Nobody running any government should be allowed to have secrets.

    I completely agree. You don’t even need the other points about democratizing the media and legalizing psychedelics. An end to government secrets is by itself a one-point program for a peaceful, just and democratic world.

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